1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of gun lock devices, and more particularly to a high security gun lock device which can be attached to a revolver or automatic pistol type hand gun to render the gun completely inoperable by an unauthorized person regardless of whether the gun is loaded or unloaded.
As is generally known, there is such a proliferation of hand guns in use by the civilian population that it has become a national problem of major import. Hardly a day passes when the news media does not report the occurrence of a serious crime or suicide committed with the use of a hand gun, or the injury or death of an individual from an accidental gun shot wound. Hand guns typically appear at the focal point of many situations which result in serious injury or death, such as drug related crimes, racial violence, ordinary street crime, domestic quarrels and suicide, to mention a few. The United States civilian population has become the greatest gun culture in the world among developed countries, and is paying a staggering price in injuries and deaths.
Illustrative of the magnitude of the problem, various surveys taken from time to time concerning the firearm population in the United States report that there are at present in excess of 200 million firearms of all types in the hands of civilians, and approximately 5 million additional firearms are purchased each year. Of this total, approximately one third, or 60 to 70 million, are hand guns, with exponential increases over the past three decades. One of two households across the Country owns a hand gun, of which a substantial proportion keep their guns both loaded and readily available, i.e., not under any form of security, regardless of whether the security is a lock device attachable to the gun or the gun is placed in a secure location. And in the past decade, women have become a major purchaser of hand guns for their personal protection both in and out of the home. These surveys define hand guns as small concealable firearms which can be fired with one hand and which fire consecutive rounds from a built in rotating cylinder or grip stored magazine, such as with revolvers and pistols.
Various other surveys report the significance of this firearm population in terms of the injury and death that result from the use of these firearms. Injuries resulting from either the intentional or unintentional use of firearms constitute the second leading cause of death due to injury, exceeded only by death from motor vehicle accidents. For example, there are at least 40,000 deaths annually from all firearms, with about 50% of this number resulting from hand guns. Of the remaining approximately 20,000 deaths, about 55% are suicides, 40% homicides and 5% unintentional. It is noteworthy that over half of the more than 30,000 suicides annually are committed with hand guns. The risk of firearm death is highest for adolescents and young adults, and among children aged 14 and younger firearms are the fourth leading cause of unintentional death. It is axiomatic that with a given probability of both intentional and unintentional woundings and deaths associated with firearms, the ever increasing number of firearms in civilian hands will result in a correspondingly increasing number of such wounding and deaths, all other factors being constant, for the population as a whole.
Two major factors to be derived from the foregoing information form the basis for the present invention. One is the need and intent in today's society of the civilian population to be able to defend itself in time of need with the use of hand guns; the other is the need to achieve a significant reduction in the number of injuries and deaths resulting from the use of these guns. Various measures have been tried and adopted from time to time in an effort to achieve this objective, with varying degrees of success, but thus far no panacea has been found, nor is it likely that one exists. However, the present invention is directed principally toward affecting a significant reduction in the number of injuries and deaths resulting from accidental or unintentional discharge of a hand gun from the following common situations, among others: (a) children playing with loaded hand guns which are accessible to them; (b) children committing suicide with hand guns which are directly accessible to them or are obtained from others; (c) unintentional shooting committed in the extreme stress of a highly emotional situation; (d) any shooting carried out with a stolen hand gun; and (e) any other situation where a shooting could have been prevented by rendering the gun inoperable and useless by anyone but the authorized owner or user.
2. Background Technology
It has been generally recognized among gun safety specialists that the concept of hand gun safety is inversely related to the concept of hand gun utility. In other words, a totally safe hand gun, utilizing existing devices, is a totally useless one, and a readily useful hand gun is one totally lacking in safety. For example, the pistol lying on the night table, loaded and cocked is 100% useful and 0% safe, in terms of accidental, inadvertent or unauthorized use of the weapon. Conversely, the same pistol locked in a display case with no ammunition available is 0% useful in a moment of need but 100% safe. It is axiomatic that as gun safety technology gradually implements systems and devices for rendering a hand gun more readily useful in a given situation, the degree of safety of the gun in that situation decreases in proportion to the increased degree of utility. Thus, the principal problem facing hand gun safety specialists is to develop and apply technology directed toward generating an optimal relationship of improved gun safety and effective gun utility.
Firearm safety devices have long been well known, having evolved for over a century from simple mechanical trigger obstructions to rather sophisticated built-in firing mechanism locking devices, as well as to external devices designed to be attached to a hand gun, preventing it from being operated in an unintended manner. In this latter category, to which the present invention relates, various types of gun safety devices have been designed and developed, and the prior art is replete with examples which have served the purpose of safety to one degree or another, but have in return hampered the utility of the gun by an authorized user. Despite the commercial availability of gun safety devices, they are not generally utilized by those individuals who obtain a hand gun for protection because they impede instant use of the gun and therefore detract from the high degree of utility which owners require. Consequently, many accidental and unintentional woundings and deaths continue to occur throughout the United States because the current gun safety devices do not adequately address the aforementioned safety/utility relationship.
For example, one type of gun lock device commercially available attaches to the trigger guard of the gun and prevents manual access to the trigger. The degree of safety is relatively low for several reasons; the device is usually locked with a conventional tumbler lock which can be picked without great difficulty, the lock can be easily drilled out since there is no built in "fail-safe" feature, and the installation of such a device on a loaded gun could easily cause an accidental discharge. Also, the utility of a gun employing this type of device is greatly diminished because of the necessity for a hidden key and the concomitant activity of the user in finding the key, operating the lock, finding ammunition, loading the gun and responding to an emergency situation during times of extreme emotional stress.
Another type of gun lock device is a cable which is passed down the muzzle end of the barrel of the gun and out through the rear of the revolver barrel or the pistol firing chamber. The ends of the cable are then locked together with either a key or a combination lock. The key lock suffers from most of the drawbacks cited with the previous device, and in both cases the utility of the gun is significantly diminished.
Still another form of gun lock device is one of several types of dummy rounds which fit in a revolver cylinder, or a pistol firing chamber, and are either mechanically or explosively actuated to jam in the cylinder chamber or firing chamber if an attempt is made to operate the gun in the normal manner, thereby rendering the gun inoperable until an individual with significant gunsmith skills removes the jammed dummy round. Although this device can be installed on a loaded gun, thereby enhancing the utility aspect, it can generally be easily removed from the gun by an unauthorized person if he or she takes the trouble to examine the gun before firing it. Further, it is difficult to ensure safe operation since the activation of the dummy round depends upon the particular motions of the person using the weapon. Location of multiple dummy rounds in various firing positions would be required to ensure that a jamming action could occur. Further, at a time of high stress the legitimate operator may not be able to recall the particular sequence of the dummy round(s) and inadvertently jam his defensive protection when he or she is in most need of it.
One of the most common forms of gun lock devices to be found in the prior art is a rigid device which is inserted down the barrel of the gun and is locked therein by suitable means so that it cannot be removed except by an authorized person who knows how to unlock the device. Generally, these devices fall into one of two categories, one being a rod which extends through the barrel and into the revolver cylinder chamber or pistol firing chamber and which includes some way of locking the device to the muzzle end of the barrel, thereby preventing rotation of the revolver cylinder or operation of the pistol firing mechanism. The other category is the type of rod which connects to some form of dummy round in the revolver cylinder chamber or the pistol firing chamber, and which includes some form of locking device to prevent removal of the device from the gun barrel except by an authorized person. A significant advantage of this type of safety device is that it can be utilized on a loaded gun since the installation of the device does not involve the use of ammunition in either the operable firing chamber of the revolver or the firing chamber of the pistol, thereby enhancing the utility of the gun. However, the current design suffers from the disadvantages that it can easily be accidentally discharged during removal of the device from the gun, it may not work on existing guns, and the device can be removed from the gun by an unauthorized person, allowing the safety integrity of these devices to be defeated without great difficulty if one has common tools and skills, or can exert sufficient force to extract the rod from the barrel. Therefore, the major drawback of these devices at the present time is that while the degree of utility of the gun is enhanced, the degree of safety from accidental or inadvertent woundings is correspondingly low.